Ultrasonic cutting machines and other CNC machines are often used for making stringer charges and other precision-cut parts. Cuts made by these machines form edge walls that must conform to predetermined engineering standards and part designs. Despite the precise control of modern CNC machines, several factors may cause a CNC machine to make unacceptable cuts resulting in non-conforming edge walls. For example, a cutting knife or other end effector of the CNC machine may be dull, the CNC machine may be out of calibration, the CNC machine may be improperly programmed, or machine offsets and control parameters may be incorrect. Any of these factors may cause material gouging, fraying, chips, tears, inaccurate radiuses, edge wall angles, and part dimensions, and other edge wall non-conformances.
Edge wall non-conformances may not be discovered until a part is being assembled, resulting in significant rework and downtime during assembly. Identifying and mitigating the problem (or problems) causing non-conformances is more difficult if the non-conformances are not discovered immediately. Machine offsets and machine maintenance are sometimes used to address these problems, but they are typically only partial and/or temporary solutions.